A long night
by beatleing
Summary: I loved the end of season 2, but I couldn't help imagining what happened in the last scenes between Ross and Demelza. Here is my take on it.


It was as if suddenly a curtain rose. As if he had been blind and suddenly he had seen again. It was only an instant, just a moment. His mind was still processing what Demelza had told him on the way home, that Elizabeth was pregnant...

When he returned to Nampara that afternoon after a long journey, not only in distance but also within himself, he came back determined, he finally knew what he wanted. He did not care what neither of them had done, he wanted to be there, at home, with his family. He had been running away for so many days, months since that night, but no more. He did not want to fight anymore, he did not want to make her suffer again, he wanted things to be as there were before, but better. Without Elizabeth. Just the three of them.

Upon arriving and finding the house empty he called for Demelza but no one answered. Perhaps she had not yet returned from Falmouth, where she had gone to visit Verity. It was late, but he thought of going after her when he heard footsteps in the room above. Prudie was kneeling beside the poster bed trying to put Jeremy to sleep.

'How come Jeremy is here, where is Demelza?' -He said before his maid became aware of his presence.

'Judas! Ee' almost kill me from the fright Mister Ross.' -Prudie replied, clutching her chest.

'Well?'

'Mistress went t' try t' warn 'em, I told 'er no' to go, they deserve what comes to 'em'

'What are you talking about?'

'That worm o' George Warleggan shot th' mistress...'

'What?!' -he thought of killing him –'Where is she? Is she wounded?'

'No, the wounded will be he, an' well deserves it. Jud, Paul Daniel, the Martins and all the villagers 're goin' for 'im, mistress Poldark went t' Trenwith t' warn th' Warleggans, I tell 'er no... ' -but Ross no longer listened.

'Christ!'

He ran down stairs, and before he left he took the weapon he had taken with him on his trip. When he reached the entrance of Trenwith, all he saw was fire, spikes and scythes aloft, all his friends were there, an army. Demelza's army. It would have been fun if it wasn't because he could not see her. In the distance he heard George's voice and the mere fact of even thinking that he was talking to her made him draw the gun and shoot in the air. When the crowd pulled back and he was able to pass in Darkie's back he could finally see her, he looked at her quickly and saw that she had a bandage in one of her arms, but otherwise she seemed safe. He focused on George then, and on reassuring his friends. Part of his recent resolution was not to risk his neck again, and he did not want to see any of his own people risking his life either. No life was worth it for a Warleggan, for none of them. For a moment he thought he saw a figure cut out behind the first-floor window watching him, he didn't care. He wanted to leave that place, the old home of the Poldarks, if they had set it on fire, it would not have bothered him.

Demelza was riding Darkie and he clung to her waist. They hadn't been so close in a long time. She told him what had happened, that Tom Harry had shot her as she crossed the fence, that she didn't want anyone to know, and that when Prudie told her what the miners were going to do, she had run to warn George. 'What else could I do? Aunt Agatha and Geoffrey Charles are there, and they are family', she said to him.

They got to Nampara minutes before the storm began. Demelza went up to her room, but Ross lingered over the mine's books of the days that he was away.

A while later he went up to their bedroom, Demelza was with her back to the door and didn't turn when he entered, he did not pay attention to what she was doing. Thinking out loud, the idea of George in his family's home now made his stomach turn.

'So she's with a child, George must be exultant. To be in my family's home and in full possession of... '

'Everything you hold dear.' -said Demelza.

'Not everything, but many things I hold dear' -he replied without looking at her yet.

There was silence.

Demelza was so used to hearing him complain about George's presence at Trenwith that it no longer surprised her, but now there was something else, Elizabeth's pregnancy reminded her of that time many years ago when Ross heard the news that she was going to have a child with Francis. His reaction, Demelza believed, was very much like his now, his tone of voice, his introspection in his possessions. That time after hearing the news Ross had opened Leisure, now Demelza was not willing to stay to find out what he would do.

'You'll get over it.'

He'd done it before.

Ross watched her leave the room with a bag, and for a brief second something crossed his mind that he never had contemplated. That she would go. Something within him made him dismiss the idea almost at the same time it had appeared, but as he looked quickly into the room he realized that it was half empty. The furniture was there of course, but all the little objects that Demelza used daily were not there. There were no clothes on the chair, and there were no Jeremy's toys scattered on the floor. He called her but she did not answer, and a moment later he followed her to the ground floor. The door was open and outside the storm fell relentlessly.

As he went down the stairs he noticed the two trunks near the entrance, were they there when they arrived? He had not noticed them. Demelza walked to the small shelf where she kept her books, took the one she had been reading in the last few days and put it in the bag.

"What are you doing?' -The question came out of his lips in a more abrupt tone than he intended.

Demelza looked at him for a moment and then said:

'I'm taking Jeremy, to my father's house, from there... who knows?'

To her father's house? Ross remembered the first time he'd seen her and the marks on her back. He felt a lump in his throat at the thought that Demelza preferred to return there than to stay with him.

'You are leaving me? But... I came back for you. I've decided not to go to war'

She sighed in exasperation.

'Is not my concern what you choose. Only what I choose. And why will I choose a man whose heart belongs to another?'

Ross's heart was actually about to slip out of his chest. The reality he had ignored for the last few months now seemed like a wall he had crashed into the darkness. He heard himself say the most obvious thing that anyone could have said, even knowing that to Demelza that little formality would care nothing.

'You are my wife.'

'Rescued from the gutter to be a great lady? I'll never be such a one.'

Now Ross could not stop looking at her, because he had never seen her like this, never seen her so determined. He knew she was strong, perhaps much stronger than him, and that she was a daring woman, that once she made a decision she would carry it through to the end, and that was what made him panic. For until now, or even before that night, all the decisions that Demelza had made she did it for their good, for their son, for their home. But now Demelza did not include him, and Ross didn't know what to say to change her mind.

'And what do I care?' -she continue –'For I am fierce, and proud, and steadfast, and true. I'll not settle for second best.'

That's where she was wrong...

'Why would you be?'

'Because you love Elizabeth, because you'll always love Elizabeth. Because you cannot conceal your pain that George now possesses her body and soul. Do you deny it?'

Ross was never good at expressing his feelings in words, but for once he decided that the truth would be the best way...

'I do not deny that I loved her,' -he began almost whispering -'long before I set eyes on you, she was my first... perfect... untouchable love'

'While I am dull, imperfect and ordinary'

'Not Ordinary, but yes, imperfect... Human... Real.'

Maybe if he'd realized before of Demelza's intention he would have had time to think what to say to her, but now there was only the truth, as much as it will hurt her again, she would have to understand...

'What that night with Elizabeth taught me, and God knows I should have been other ways come to my senses, but my arrogance, my idiocy, has been spectacular. All I can say is that after that night, because of it, I came to see that if you take an idealized love and bring it down to the level of an imperfect one, it isn't the imperfect one that suffers...'

Demelza knew he was being honest. After so many years at his side and even before marrying him, she had learned to read his humor in his face, in his gaze, and in the brooding of his frown.

'My true, real and abiding love is not for her... it's for you. She will never come between us again.'

Demelza tried to contain the tears that had accumulated in her eyes, her lips tight and her breath almost choking her. A tumult of emotions gathered in every corner of her being, and she struggled to hold on to one, tried to identify some clear and concrete feeling, Ross waited for her to speak, to answer his declaration, because that was what it was, a declaration of love. But he had told her before that he loved her, not many times, true, but he already had. And had the fact of loving her prevented him from betraying her? Had he not risked everything they have even before that night? Was not Elizabeth still there, a step away from home? Married, yes, but what would happen when she got tired of George, would not she run back into Ross's arms and he to hers?

Ross continued to watch her and time passed until the silence became an uncomfortable agony. Ross took a step toward her and raised his hand to touch his face.

'Demelza...'

But she backed away.

'No' -she murmured and raised her hand to stop his, which froze in the air before reaching her.

'I can't, Ross... I... I'm glad you prefer me tonight, but you can't be sure it will not happen again. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but within a month or a year, you do not know...'

'Demelza... you must end this... until when? It was just one night... it was nothing'

He didn't do it consciously but as he spoke his cheeks became harder and his tone rose.

'Nothing? You cannot say that, you don't have the right to ruin our lives and then say it was nothing!'

Ross stepped back and tried to return to the conciliatory tone with which he had begun, but now it was her who had taken courage...

'All that I want…'

'What?! What do you want, Ross?'

'I want you to love me again'

Demelza sighed irritably.

'When during all this time I...?' -but she couldn't finish saying it -'Why do you think that? Because I did not jump with joy when you reopened Grace? Or because I did not come back to you when you put a sack of coins in my hand?... Because I'm always angry at you?... Because I almost slept with somebody else?' -and her voice nearly broke into the latter -'Believe me Ross, all that... that does not mean that I don't love you.'

'Then why are you leaving? Can't you forgive me?'

She didn't answer and because of her silence Ross continued talking.

'What about Jeremy? Are you going to take him with your father?, with your father who beat you when you were little?!. He deserves... the two of you deserve better...'

It was true, and she knew it. Everything she had lived and felt in the last few months she had it all on her skin and she wanted to scream, but instead she couldn't help but use that cold, distant tone that she hated so much but she had become so accustomed to using it.

'Yes, Ross, we deserve better. If there is something that you and your cousin taught me is that I am also a Poldark, and we Poldarks are hasty and unconformable. And I'm not satisfied with this marriage. With you spending hours in Trenwith, now you care about your child but you didn't want him in the first place... '

'He will not leave, he is my son!'

'He is mine! I raised him! Alone, by myself, while you played the happy family with Elizabeth or risked your life being reckless... you did not care for us then, don't pretend that you care for us now.'

'Are you going to him?'

'What?!'

'To McNeil.'

Looking at her face, her eyes glistening with anger, her cheeks almost red and her hands like fists, he realized that he had once again ruined it. What she told him, he could not deny it. Demelza was breathing heavily trying to control herself. He was losing her, and he was lost too, he did not know what else to say...

'Ross... you're horrible.' -And she ran upstairs, she had to escape, get out of that room. But before she reached the last step he said almost shouting:

'I'm sorry!' -And she stopped at the top of the stairs.

'I'm sorry,' -he repeated again and the words almost drowned in his throat –'for hurting you that night, you did not deserve that. But now I see that was not the only way I caused you pain. I hurt you, I was a mediocre husband and an absent father... I'd like to remedy that if you give me a chance. I…'

A tear slipped from between his eyelashes and began to slide along his scar.

'...all my life I thought, somewhere distant inside me, I wondered what my life with Elizabeth would had been like. It was not a wish but a doubt, and sometimes, especially since Francis died, I asked myself that question more consciously than in others...

Demelza turned to look at him and in a distant tone said,

'So you were thinking about her while you were married to me?'

'No, not in that way. I was happy... you made me happy. You always gave me what I needed and I did not realize how much... '

She could see how much he was trying to articulate the words, and that made her pay attention to what he was trying to say.

'...how much you mean to me. It was as if I had been blind... '

What would he do if Demelza left him? He could already feel the pain in his heart, but this time it was different, different from what he once felt for Elizabeth when he lost her.

'...Elizabeth was just an empty thought. I have lived without her all my life, I can't live without you... I don't want to live without you.'

For the first time in years, probably since Julia's death, Ross was crying. The salty drops that were his tears clouded his view, and Demelza became blurred, he could not see her clearly.

She was also trying not to cry. She had never seen her husband like that, so vulnerable, so dejected. It took all her willpower to avoid the urge to go to him, she wanted to comfort him, her perpetual desire to please him suddenly reappeared. But she did not know what to say, all this time she'd been so angry, so poisoned by her own self-pity that she failed to see him. She turned to the bedroom and closed the door behind her.

…

Demelza stood staring at her son for what seemed like an eternity. His peaceful breathing in his sleep calmed her. Her mind was a battlefield, struggling, trying to find truth in his words, trying to believe him, telling herself that it was late now, that nothing mattered anymore. Her heart... she had left her heart with him on the floor below.

Because she knew deep in her being that everything he'd said tonight was true. The painful things, but the beautiful ones too. She laid on the master bed next to Jeremy for hours, she didn't change her clothes, her nightgown was already packed in one of the chests. Demelza did not sleep, but being there near her son reassured her. She had said such nasty things to him, she wanted to hurt him, and she did, but now, now she was not sure.

Ross wasn't sleeping either. After Demelza went to her room he retired to the library, defeated. He poured himself a glass of rum but did not drink it. He sat on the cot looking at the fire in the hearth, the crying had stopped but he could still feel the burning in his eyes. For some reason his mind wandered to his father, he had never had a chance to say goodbye to him. It was strange because Ross never considered that they had a close relationship, he respected him, yes, but he had never seen him as a man from whom he would ever need anything. He was a temperamental man. A peculiar man who did not let himself be governed by the rules of society. A libertine for some people, and yet he could remember his father Joshua loving his mother. It was not a memory in itself, nothing precise, it was not a word or a kiss, just a feeling. The sensation of returning in the evenings after playing all day on the beach to a house full of love. His father was always in the mine or in his library, in this library, but that feeling was always there, he probably felt it through the happiness of his mother...

How could he do it? How could he live without her and not go mad?

He needed his advice. Was this worse than what had happened to his father? To know that the loved one was lost, but not lost from the world but lost by him...

There was not a single place in the house in which he didn't have a memory of her. Not one inch of his body in which he could not feel her. She was still there and yet he could already feel her absence, an emptiness in the middle of his being... He didn't realize how many hours had passed, outside it was no longer raining and in the distance he could hear the roar of the sea.

'I'm sorry... the things I told you, I should not have said them.'

Demelza was at the library's door, had been there for a while but Ross had not seen her and was startled at the sound of her voice.

'Truths.'

'No, well, not all... Still, I didn't mean to hurt you'

Ross lifted his head, stared at her, and nodded.

'Yes you did. But it doesn't matter, I deserve it, every word, every...'

'No Ross' -Demelza interrupted him, she went into the room and then hesitated a moment before she sat on the other side of the bed –'you don't understand, I... I was so angry all this time, and believe me I know I was right to act that way, but I can't go on like this... I'm so tired... '

Both of them spoke in a low voice and because of how they were sitting Demelza only saw the side of his face with the scar. Now it was her who struggled to find the words...

'...I said such horrible things and did things that I regret. That night I went to Werry House, I didn't know what I was doing...'

'A true Poldark' -said Ross, remembering what Demelza had told him before, and a small smile appeared on his lips.

'Ross, don't tease me, I'm serious'

'I know you are and I don't care, what happened that night I mean, if anything had happened, it was not your fault but mine. I want to give you something.' -Ross rose abruptly from the bunk bed and began to search in the bag he had taken to London. One by one he took off the clothes of his uniform that ended up scattered on his desk before he found what he was looking for. -'I wanted to give it to you in the morning, but since there may be no tomorrow for us I think is better that you have it now'

He stood in front of his wife who was watching him surprised and gave her a small box. Demelza slowly put it on her knees and hesitated before opening it...

'My brooch. The one that we sold, how did you find it?'

'Searching and refusing to give up.'

Demelza's eyes filled with tears again, but this time she did not try to stop them. Seeing her crying, Ross knelt in front of her, wiping the tears with his fingers and leaving his hands on his wife's face.

'Please do not cry. Think of this gift as a token of my love and devotion. '

'Ross...'

'Demelza, I don't want you to go. What will I do without you?'

The minutes passed without anyone saying anything. Demelza was the first to get up, Ross thought she would go to her room, but instead she opened the bed blankets and lay in it making room for him. Ross just took off his boots, they were both still dressed, and lay down next to her. Demelza covered them both with the blankets. It was difficult for them to fit into such a small bed and the only way either of them would not fall to the floor was to hug each other.

'Maybe we should go upstairs' –he said.

'We can't, Jeremy is sleeping in our bed'

The word 'our' did not go unnoticed.

'I envy him. I envy him because he has you for him all day... I envy him because you care for him... I envy him because you love him...'

'Ross?'

'Mmmh?'

'Ssshhh'

…

Ross woke up alone in the little bed a few hours later. It was already morning and the sky was clear. When he went into the parlour he didn't see the trunks or the bag, and for a moment he thought Demelza was gone, but then he heard Jeremy laughing in the kitchen. His son was playing with Garrick while Prudie cooked breakfast for him.

'Good morning' -he said in a low voice as he entered the room. The boy got up from the floor and ran to him with his arms in the air.

'Papa!'

Ross picked him up and kissed him on the forehead.

'Where's your mother?'

'The mistress left a while ago. She said t' me t' tell 'ee tha' she would go t' the mine. Come master Jeremy, don't waste th' Captain time and come t' breakfast'

Apparently Ross would have to make up all the women in the house. He kissed his son again before sitting him down at the table, then he went looking for his wife.

He saw her on the cliff beyond Wheal Grace. The wind was blowing and her hair looked like a banner that fluttered in front of the sea. In the distance he could see dozens of ships leaving the coast and heading for war. He thought that Dwight would be in one of those ships, and how close he had been to going in one of them as well.

Demelza turned around as she felt him approaching and looked into his eyes, with those green stars as deep as the sea. She was so beautiful… how could he have been so stupid? But no more... Demelza lifted her face and brought her lips to him and Ross kissed gently for fear of breaking her. One time, then another. Then he hugged her and kissed her forehead.

'You will stay my love?'

'Yes Ross, I will stay.'

…

…

…

AN: I hope you enjoyed this and sorry for any grammar mistake, english is not my native language.


End file.
